SEC - credit where it's due

[doggydaddy]

Congrats to the fans of the SEC for their performance to date in the tourney. 5 in the sweet 16 is a very good accomplishment.

As noted in some other posts on this, perspective on the achievement is needed. Based on the SEC fans reaction, perspective is lacking.

- Every game for the teams that advanced were home except for USC, and that was a neutral court.
- except for the LSU upset of WV at home, every other win for the SEC teams were against lower seeds. And mostly by a wide margin.

3 Texas A&M beat a 14 and 11 seed.
1 South Carolina beat a 16 and a 9 seed.
1 Tennessee beat 16 and an 8 seed.
3 Kentucky beat a 14 and a 6 seed.
7 LSU beat a 10 and a 2 seed.

- RPI of the teams they beat again with the exception of WV were weak

14 Texas A&M beat an 80 and 45 RPI.
6 South Carolina beat a 145 and a 35 RPI.
5 Tennessee beat a 141 and a 28 RPI.
10 Kentucky beat a 91 and a 26 RPI.
15 LSU beat a 36 and a 12 RPI.

These 5 teams should have made the Sweet Sixteen based on RPI. On one upset and I'm not even sure WV was favored over LSU.

Solid job by the SEC but pretty weak job by the fans.

 

[stwainfan]

I do agree that four of the teams were expected to make it here. The LSU upset was the one not many expected. The Kentucky vs Baylor game looks interesting . They played a heck of a game early in the year. Will this game come close too that one?

 

[boontonbomber]

those are 5 decent basketball teams. and they should be good for the foreseeable future. wouldn't surprise me to see 2 or 3 of them in the final 8.

 

[dtbtbtb]

Good job by the SEC. The LSU win while at home was impressive!

 

[toadfoot]

Just to play devil's advocate here... looking at who won and who lost misses a lot.

South Carolina beat CS Northridge by 15. The same CS Northridge that lost by MORE than 15 to Sacramento St., Montana St., BYU, Eastern Washington and Oregon. Interestingly CS lost to UC Davis by 8, the same UCD that lost 97-37 to UConn.

South Carolina then beat Oregon St by 9. CS Northridge lost by 9 or more to ND, Cal, Stanford and USC twice.

Texas A&M beat North Dakota by 15. The same North Dakota team that lost by 29 to Iowa St., 24 to Iowa and 20 to Southern Utah.

Kentucky beat Syracuse by 5 with Syracuse's best player out on Kentucky's home floor no less. Syracuse WITH Sykes lost to Duke by 33, Maryland by 15 and 25, ND by 37, FSU by 24 and NC St. by 16.

LSU has been slightly more impressive, although they've had the advantage of playing on their home court and WV's Caldwell had a horrible shooting night.

Tennessee has likewise not looked like a #1. Beating St. John's at Thompson-Boling Arena by 16 is nothing to write home about considering that St. John's lost at Auburn by 14, at Xavier by 15 and at home to DePaul by 15 and Marquette by 13.

The only impressive win by an SEC team so far was Kentucky's win over Wright St, but even there we're talking about a team that lost twice to Cleveland St. and by 59 to Louisville.

A win is a win, but would us UConn fans be more than a little concerned if UConn had beaten Prairie View and Saint Joseph's by 10-15 points?

Just as an aside I couldn't help but chuckle over the ESPN recap for the South Carolina/Oregon St. game.

"Top-seeded South Carolina overwhelms Oregon State"

Since when is a 9 point win overwhelming, especially when Oregon St. outscored SC from the floor 60-44?

I had been hoping that South Carolina loses, but after seeing their performance so far I've changed my mind. I would love to UConn play them in the national semi-final. They would be a much easier opponent than Stanford.

 

[ThisJustIn]

Of all the wins, LSU's impresses me the most - and it was stunning to read about a Carey team imploding. The Tigers were a hot mess at the end of the season -- i had them and Georgia my first "out of the bracket" SEC team. It looks like Nikki may be proving that she CAN actually coach.